The Very Best
by 27dayz
Summary: As Ash Ketchum set out on his journey, he was hit by lightning. Did he really walk away unscathed, or is he really laying in a hospital bed as those who love him wait, wonder, let go, and move on?


**AN: So this is an AU fic that was inspired after watching Pokemon Theory videos on youtube and then reading a theory about how Ash has been in a coma imagining all of the events in the anime. Interesting idea, no?**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

**Summary:** _As Ash Ketchum set out on his journey, he was hit by lightning. Did he really walk away unscathed, or is he really laying in a hospital bed as those who love him wait, wonder, let go, and move on?_

**The Very Best**

Three.

That was the number of hours that her son had been travelling on his pokemon journey.

Three.

It was also the number of times the phone rang before Delia Ketchum had plucked it from its cradle on that fateful night.

Three.

It was the number of years that he had laid motionless in a hospital bed, hooked up to a machine.

Delia Ketchum stood at the foot of the bed, her puffy eyes fixed on the boy...teenager...that slept beneath the pale blue sheets. How he had changed from the ten-year-old who had claimed he was going to be the world's greatest. That young, innocent face had morphed into a pale, gaunt face of the young man he would have been. She could even see a hint of a five o'clock shadow on his chin, dark like his ebony hair.

He was no longer her sweet, happy baby boy.

He was an adolescent shell of what her boy had been...of what he would never be again.

She still remembered thinking that he was far too young to be venturing out into the world alone. He was only ten...still a baby. She still remembered how her sweet boy had begged and then how he had said the words that had made her cave in and give him permission to embark on his journey.

* * *

_"Mom, I miss Red. I wanna be the very best, like him, and then I'll bring him home! I wanna be a family again!"_

* * *

Red, her older son, had taken off on his own journey when Ash was only seven. Eleven-year-old Red decided he had had enough of his parents fighting and took off on his journey without either of his parents' permission. Delia's ex-husband had been furious and went after Red to bring him home, citing those same words.

* * *

_"Delia, I WILL bring him home! He's far too young and the world is far too dangerous! I don't know what the boy was thinking! He's never been on his own before! He wouldn't last two days!"_

* * *

Her husband had been wrong. Red not only lasted more than two days on his own, but he had proved to be a prodigy at raising pokemon. He quickly became one of the strongest trainers around. When her husband finally tracked Red down, Red had easily defeated him in a battle. Then, Red went on to become the youngest champion in league history. In spite of this, he rarely called or visited the rest of the family. One visit stood out in Delia's mind, when Red had passed through Pallet Town once, when Ash was nine. Red showed Ash the pokemon he had on hand: Bulbasaur, Squirtle, Charizard, Butterfree, Snorlax, and Pikachu. She remembered how Ash had lit up around the pikachu, running around the yard and laughing.

Delia swallowed a lump in her throat. She just hadn't been able to tell Ash 'no' after he revealed why he was so desperate to leave on his journey. So she had agreed to his request and signed the consent forms.

In short, she had let him leave the safety of her arms and venture out into a dangerous world that he knew nothing about. More tears fell from her brown eyes.

* * *

_"Bye Mom! I'll call you when I get to Viridian City!" Ash had called as he ran off with his new pikachu in tow._

* * *

It was the last thing he said to her. He never called. Instead, she had had to call Viridian City when the hour grew too late.

* * *

_"Hello?"_

_"It's me. Has Ash made it into the city yet?"_

_"No. When did he leave?"_

_"This morning. He should have been there by now. It's eleven at night."_

_A long sigh on the other end._

_"He may have got side-tracked and had to campout."_

_"What if he's hurt? I told him to hurry to Viridian and go see you. It's not like him not to listen."_

_Another sigh, this one sounding weary._

_"Delia, he's very like his brother. Determined. I'm sure he's fine," there was a short pause before he continued, probably knowing that she was about to protest, "but I suppose it wouldn't hurt to take a drive to go look for him. I'll find him and he can stay with me tonight."_

* * *

"Delia?" a familiar voice questioned. She turned and saw him, the man she had loved. His dark hair was haphazardly combed, though most of it stuck up the way her son's often had. There were streaks of silver that stood out against the ebony strands. He had dark bags under his grey eyes and deep, troubled lines on his face. Only three years ago, Giovanni Ketchum had looked young for thirty-eight. Now, he looked closer to fifty.

"Hello, Gio," she greeted, though the greeting was lost on him. Instead, his eyes were on Ash. There was a sad, faraway look in Giovanni's eyes. Delia wondered if he was remembering the night their lives changed.

* * *

_Ring!_

_Ring!_

_Ring!_

_"Hello?" Delia gasped sleepily, holding the phone to her ear. Out of the corner of her eye, she read the time on the digital clock: 2:03 am._

_"Hello."_

_"Giovanni? Is that you? What is it?"_

_"There was an accident. You need to...you have to come to Viridian. Viridian Memorial Hospital. You have to come. Now," she heard his voice tremble and she felt her blood freeze in her veins._

_"Gio, what happened? What kind of accident?"_

_"Ash. Ash had an accident. Ash had an accident."_

* * *

Delia remembered dropping the phone and throwing on some clothes. She had sped in the dark to Viridian City and found her estranged husband sitting in the waiting room, cradling his head in his hands. It had taken him two hours to find Ash in the dark, and when he did, he had found his son laying unconscious on the ground in a tangle of burnt metal that was once a bike.

It was a few hours later when they learned how their son was injured. He had been riding the bike in a storm, desperate to get his injured pikachu to Viridian, so the young girl who owned the bike claimed. He had been struck by a bolt of lightning. His pikachu had tried to absorb the blast, but it wasn't strong enough. It died instantly, but lessened the blast that Ash took. Ash was left in the comatose state that he had been in for the last three years.

"Do you ever wonder what's going on in his head? If he's thinking? If he's in pain?" Giovanni asked softly, tentatively reaching out to touch his son's head.

"All the time," Delia replied, "I like to think that he's in his own little world making all his dreams come true."

"Perhaps," Giovanni agreed. There was a long pause.

"I know you already think horribly of me-"

"I don't," Delia said.

"You should. I cheated on you. Left you and our sons for a twenty-year-old, who left me a week before Ash got hurt for some rich kid named James," Giovanni sighed, "I never used to believe in Karma, but now it's hard not to. I abandoned our family and I got abandoned. Red hates me and Ash...that's the universe's way of punishing me for being a class A jerk."

"I hardly think Ash's accident was your fault. I'm just thankful you went after him that night or we probably would have lost him then," Delia said. Giovanni looked at her and shook his head.

"Delia, we've already lost him," he said sadly, "He's on life support. Nothing will bring him out of it. For god sakes, we nearly paralyzed him trying that stupid shock-therapy. Even if he did wake up, he wouldn't be the same. You've heard the doctors talking about brain damage as much as I have."

"At least we got the chance to try," Delia reminded him, "We would have regretted it otherwise."

"Yeah," Giovanni nodded bitterly, "Now we get to be the parents that pull the plug on their own kid."

"Our insurance ran out, Gio. It's not like we're...it's not that we want to do this."

"I know it," Giovanni growled, "For months, I've been trying to figure out how to raise the money to keep him on the machines. I'm not a rich business man. You know that better than anyone. I'm a liar. I work a crap job for a corrupt politician. I'm scum and not even the rich-useful-crime-lord scum."

"Gio-"

"Delia, don't try to defend me. It's what you do best...what you always did, but I don't deserve it," he refuted her, "Let's just do this."

"What about Red?"

"He said he didn't want to come."

Delia felt hurt course through her. She had thought that after everything, Red would forget their squabbles and be there for the brother that had admired him so.

"I said I didn't want to. I didn't say I wouldn't," a deep voice said from the doorway. Giovanni and Delia turned to see their seventeen-year-old son. Delia was struck by how he reminded her of a young Giovanni. His piercing silver eyes came from his father, along with the strong chin and stubborn temper. Red had discarded his pokemon league hat, letting his brown hair fall to just above his neck.

"I'm glad you're here," Delia said, "Ash loves you so much. Before he left home, he was watching an old video of your league battle with Agatha, the one where you used your nidorino. He never could understand why you didn't use your charizard or pikachu."

"I was saving them for Lance," Red said simply, taking a chair beside his brother's bed, "That's what you do. You think, plan a strategy, and then throw it out the window when the moment changes."

"You sound so wise," Delia complemented him, "I hope he heard that. It was beautiful."

Red looked up at her and his father. It had been a long time since all four of them had been in a room together. It was then that Red Ketchum realized how much he had missed them and how much hurt he had caused them when he had run away.

And now his brother was about to die.

The moment had changed.

He had to change with it.

"I'm sorry," he apologized to his parents, "I'm sorry I've been so angry."

"Sweetheart, you had a right to be angry," Delia said gently, putting an arm around his shoulders. This was when the very best champion, like no one ever was, cried.

"Mom, Dad, I wanna come home."

Delia hugged him and looked over his mop of brown hair to her ex-husband, "We're a family," she whispered to both of them, "You can always come home."

It was then that Giovanni approached and put an arm around Delia and a hand on Red's shoulder.

The three of them were together when the doctor came in to turn off the machines.

All three of them held onto Ash as they watched the heart monitor slow.

All three of them whispered a goodbye.

* * *

"Dragonite is unable to battle! The winner is Ash Ketchum from Pallet Town!" the announced roared throughout the arena. A ten-year-old boy stood, dumbstruck, in the challenger's square as he watched Lance the dragon master recall his dragonite.

"You did it, Ash!" he heard Misty call.

"Way to go, Ash!" Brock cheered.

"He made it!" Tracey cheered from in between Professor Oak and Ash's mother.

"Yeah! Way to go, Ash!" Max, May, and Dawn called.

"He actually did it," Gary Oak grinned.

"The twerp did it!" Meowth exclaimed from James's shoulder.

"I guess blasting us off into the air everyday was good practice," Jessie commented, crossing her arms over his chest.

"If that's the case," James started, "then we're the reason he won."

The three Team Rocket members broke out into huge grins and hugged each other, "HOORAY FOR US!"

They didn't notice their boss, the feared Giovanni, sitting behind them, smirking as he observed the new champion.

"Pikapi!" Pikachu cried, running towards its trainer from the battlefield. Ash jolted out of his daze and split a smile from ear-to-ear as he as he picked up his electric-mouse and spun in a circle.

"We did it!" he cheered.

Suddenly he stopped spinning.

There, standing on the opposite side of the stadium, was a boy a little older than Ash. He was tall with brown hair and striking grey eyes. Ash stepped forward, walking until he met the strange boy in the middle of the stadium.

"Some battle," the boy said, "How'd you do it?"

"You think, plan a strategy, and then throw it out the window when the moment changes," Ash shrugged, embarrassed at the praise. The boy smirked.

"You did great, Brother," he said.

"Do I know you?" Ash asked, frowning. The boy's smile grew larger.

"We go way back," he said, "I'm Red. I'm from Pallet Town too."

"Oh. Nice to meet you, Red," Ash smiled, "I'm sorry I don't remember you."

"Sure you do," Red assured him, reaching out to scratch Pikachu's ears, "I used to be the very best. That's what you always said to me when you were little."

And for a moment, Ash heard his own, younger voice in his head.

_"Red, you're the best! Better than the best! You're the VERY best!" he said as he hugged a taller boy around the middle. In the background, a pikachu was chirping._

"Right," Ash said, "I remember. You're a great trainer...a pokemon master! Are you here to battle me?"

Red shook his head, "No, Ash, I already know that YOU are the very best, like no one ever was or ever will be. You never gave up. You held on for so long, long enough for me to finally come back. You brought me home."

"I did?" Ash asked, confused.

"You did," Red nodded, "Now let me do the same for you. Let's go home, Brother."

Red and Ash walked through the doors of the stadium. Ash was momentarily blinded as everything disappeared in a gulf of white light.

"Pikapi," Pikachu nuzzled Ash's cheek, reassuring him.

"Come on, Ash," Red said gently.

Together, they walked into the light.

**The End.**

**AN: So hopefuly you read this and stuck around long enough to make it to the end where I ask you to review and let me know what you think.**

**So basically, I took a couple theories, such as Ash being in a coma, Giovanni being Ash's dad, and Red being Ash's older brother, and worked them into a fanfic together. I haven't felt this inspired in a long time. If anyone would like any further information about these theories, let me know and I'll point you in the direction I stumbled in.**


End file.
